DOI: 10.5176/2251-1865_CBP13.42
Authors: McDowall, J., Lovegrove, A., & Young, B.
Abstract:
In three experiments we examined whether emotional faces (Experiment 1 and 2), and valenced scenes (Experiment 3), would induce spatial biases in attention. In Experiment 1 participants were briefly shown one of two schematic faces, either smiling or sad, in the center of a computer screen. The face was immediately replaced by a target letter presented either at the top or bottom of the screen. Participants were quicker to identify targets at the top half of the screen but only after viewing a smiling face. In Experiment 2 we investigated and eliminated the possibility that this effect was being driven simply by the shapes of the “mouths” in the happy face (turned upwards) and sad face (turned downwards) rather than the emotional nature of the faces. In Experiment 3, participants evaluated pleasant and unpleasant scenes shown either at the top or bottom of a computer screen. Reaction time to pleasant scenes was quicker at the top of the screen, and quicker to unpleasant scenes at the bottom of the screen. These findings add to a growing body of research concerning the interaction between affective stimuli and spatial attention and show that spatial biases can be influenced by briefly presented non-verbal affective stimuli (Experiment 1), and that spatial position can influence the evaluation of emotionally toned scenes (Experiment 3).
Keywords: component; Affect, Attention, Embodied cognitions
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